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Ryan Phillippe Has a Very Important Message for You—Watch Now!

Actor gets political in new PSA

By Marc Malkin Jun 28, 2014 1:15 PMTags

Ryan Phillippe is extending his hand (and voice) almost 7,000 miles from Hollywood to West Papua.

In a new PSA for the Isolated Ambassador for Peace campaign, the actor and father of three urges the western world to take action to stop what he calls the Indonesian military's genocide of the Papuan population.

"In one of the most remote parts of the world, the existence of an entire culture is being threatened," the actor says in the PSA (released exclusively to E! News). "Under the canopy of the densest rainforest in the world they thought they could keep it a secret from us. They think we won't care. They actually believe we won't do something about it. Now it's time to do something and it starts with you."

Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Military forces have killed an estimated one million Papuans, according to the PSA.

Phillippe asks supporters to go to isolated.tv to sign a petition demanding that the U.S. congress revisit a resolution to stop the human rights abuses in West Papua. "Papuans endure torture and murder carried out by the Indonesian military every day for simply living on their own land," he says.

Phillippe's interest in the area began with Isolated, a documentary he produced and narrated that was intended to be about a group of surfers who traveled to the most remote parts of Indonesia to ride waves that had never been ridden before. However, the film took a different turn when the surfers and filmmakers learned more about the plight of the Papuans. "What began as search to find untouched waves became a mission to uncover the truth," Phillippe says in a trailer for the documentary.

Isolated is available through VOD platforms, including iTunes, Amazon and Vimeo.

Isolated is one of the few films that Phillippe has been involved with that his and his ex-wife Reese Witherspoon's kids Ava and Deacon are allowed to watch. The proud father in him beamed to E! News last year at the doc's premiere at the Maui Film Festival, "My son who's 9 years old watched it twice and was really moved by it and wants to do something."